Carroll Seghers, a salesman who owned and operated a string of jewelry stores from Cincinnati to Fort Lauderdale, died on Wednesday at Broward General Medical Center. He was 89. Mr. Seghers lived in South Miami with a grandson, Stephen Moorman. He remained active until only a few years ago, when his health declined. He had been hospitalized with heart and lung problems and a broken hip. Mr. Seghers was born in New Orleans. His son-in-law, Robert Moorman, said Mr. Seghers and his family were so poor that the archbishop of Cincinnati, a distant relative, brought the family to that city under his personal care.

LAKE PARK Don't mess with Arthur Lewis. His aim is getting better. For the second time in five years, the 89-year-old shop owner was confronted with an armed bandit trying to rob his jewelry store. He fought back, pulled his own handgun and shot the robber five times. Although the gun-wielding thief was half his age, Lewis wasn't giving in. When the robber first pulled out the gun, Lewis grabbed his wrist and began a desperate arm wrestling match. Somehow, Lewis managed to get his own gun out. "I reached in my pocket and I had a .38 revolver and I fired into him," Lewis said.

DNA fingerprinting has led to the arrest of a suspect in a string of break- ins and the theft of $500,000 in jewels from fashionable department and jewelry stores in Palm Beach and Dade counties. Ralph Enzio Amoroso, 39, of Miami was held in lieu of $1 million bail on Monday at the Palm Beach County Jail. He has been in custody since his arrest during a Feb. 2 break-in at Lord & Taylor, a store in Town Center at Boca Raton. In all, Amoroso was charged on Monday with seven burglaries that began in May, said Metro-Dade Police Detective Lisa La Cascio.

Authorities are investigating whether a wounded man found Saturday in Boca Raton was the assailant in a jewelry store heist that ended in gunfire. A man asked to see an item at the jewelry store just before 3 p.m. in Lake Park, in the 900 block of Federal Highway, the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office said. He then pulled out a gun on the owner, who also pulled out his gun in self-defense, and shots were fired, deputies said. The robber fled. Deputies said in a news release that Boca Raton police notified them of a man found in Boca Raton who had gunshot wounds.

Federal officials on Friday charged 13 men, including a Weston resident, with carrying out a series of armed robberies of exclusive jewelry stores in Florida, Wisconsin, Oklahoma and California. The gang netted $16 million, the FBI said. Martin Katz, 60, of 2600 block of Oakmont in the Weston Hills neighborhood, was arrested without incident at his house by federal agents on Friday morning, FBI spokesman Paul Miller said. The nine-count racketeering indictment returned by a federal grand jury in Tampa charged the men with carrying out 13 robberies - four of them in South Florida, federal officials said.

The days of swinging sledgehammers at jewelry cases and walking away with handfuls of Rolex watches may soon end for a brazen gang that has been terrorizing mall jewelry stores from South Florida to Georgia since November. Dubbed the "Rolex bandits" because they scour the display cases for the fancy watches, the gang has hit Mayor's stores at the Broward Mall, in Plantation, the Galleria, in Fort Lauderdale, and Miami International Mall in west Miami-Dade County. Detectives from several counties say members have been storming into stores near closing time.

POMPANO BEACH -- A Federal Express driver was arrested on theft charges on Monday after admitting to stealing packages of gold and diamond jewelry from his route, police said. Donald Eugene Humphries, 37, of Margate, was charged with four counts of grand theft following an investigation by police and the company, police spokeswoman Sandra King said. The items, taken on four occasions over a year, had an estimated total value of $28,000, King said. The investigation showed that Humphries would divert to his route packages that were supposed to be delivered to jewelry stores and kept the packages for himself, King said.

BOYNTON BEACH -- Burglars stole several thousands of dollars worth of jewelry from a store in the Boynton Beach Mall, a police spokesman said on Tuesday. The burglars broke into the mall between midnight on Sunday and 9 a.m. on Monday and cut a lock on a security gate at Zale`s Jewelers, Lt. Dale Hammack said. Police would not release the exact amount of jewelry taken. They said the break-in appears similar to recent burglaries at jewelry stores in West Palm Beach.

An organized gang of crack cocaine dealers who robbed jewelry stores to pay for their empire has been dismantled with the federal indictment of 18 people, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Miami said on Monday. The south Dade County ring, begun in 1986, grew into a multimillion-dollar, multistate enterprise with an unusual hallmark: Members baked the potent cocaine into the shape of cookies and distributed it in the lining of picnic coolers, U.S. Attorney Kendall Coffey said at a morning news conference.

Jewelmasters, the struggling West Palm Beach-based jewelry company, is trying a new tactic in its plan to turn around its money-losing ways: Go for the gold. Earlier this month, the company opened The Gold Store at Town Center mall in Boca Raton. The store will feature only gold jewelry, which the gold industry says is a first. Most jewelry stores sell gold, diamonds and silver, according to the World Gold Council. "When you spend $200, $300, $500 for diamonds, you can hardly see it," Jewelmasters Chairman Josef Barr said.

Two men, one armed, got away with cash and several items after a jewelry store robbery Friday, Davie police said. The suspects entered Ocean Jewelers, 7162 Stirling Road, around 3:20 p.m., officials said. One of the men produced a firearm and demanded money. The men seized cash and merchandise then fled the business. Police canine units were unable to locate them. The total worth of the stolen property was not released. Both suspects wore Miami Heat ball caps and button-down shirts.

Plantation Police are searching for four masked suspects and their get-away vehicle following the armed robbed of a jewelry store. Employees were ordered to the floor when the robbers entered Jared Jewelers, 12260 W. Sunrise Blvd., just before 9 p.m. Monday, police said. The suspects converged on the business in a gray Ford F-350 pickup truck, a black Honda CBR 1000 motorcycle and a light-colored sedan with a missing front left hubcap, surveillance video showed. They used hammers to smash display cases before scooping up jewelry and leaving ---for a short distance-- in the pickup truck, which was left at a neighboring business. The thieves left the pickup behind and fled the scene in the sedan with the missing hubcap. That vehicle was still being sought by police as of Thursday morning, according to Detective Robert Rettig.

Two burglars got in and out of a Boca jewelry store through the roof early Friday and got away with pricey watches, police said. Police were called to an alarm at the Mayor's Jewelry Store, 6000 West Glades Rd. at about 4:20 a.m. When offiers looked inside the store, they could see broken glass scattered throughout. Town Center Mall security let the officers in to check the store and they discovered the roof had been breached. The two thieves entered and exited the store through the roof and made off with an undetermined number of Breitling watches.

Two Miami men with a taste for violence and things that sparkle have been sentenced to life in prison for a series of armed robberies at jewelry stores, U.S. Attorney Wifredo A. Ferrer announced Monday. Daniel Rodriguez, 28, and Louis Robinson Jr., 35, were convicted by a federal jury in August for holdups across South Florida that resulted in the shooting of one victim and more than $1 million in jewelry taken, prosecutors said. According to trial testimony and evidence, the first robbery occurred in July 2012 at the ABC Jewelry Store at 3580 W. 18th Ave. in Hialeah.

The armed robbery of a jewelry store ended with three arrests, but not before there were valuables thrown from a fleeing car, two car crashes and an attempted home burglary, police in two cities said. At about 4:20 p.m. Saturday, surveillance video showed two persons clad in ski masks and carrying pistols enter Renee's Golden Touch at 6501 Taft St., prompting two female workers to press an alarm and flee through a back door, a Hollywood police complaint affidavit says. Two men still inside the store were forced to the floor at gunpoint, the agency said.

The Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office is seeking the public's help to find a man wanted for stealing an engagement ring from a Zales Jewelry Store in Wellington . The theft happened Dec. 6, when a man walked into the store in The Mall at Wellington Green posing as a customer, according to Sheriff's Office Spokeswoman Teri Barbera. Sales assistants helped him for about an hour before he slipped a 1.97 carat diamond Princess-cut Solitaire engagement ring on his pinky and walked out of the store.

W.R. Grace & Co. put its entire, 660-store retail division on the block Tuesday to offset the expense of a massive common stock repurchase agreement it has struck with a West German bank. South Florida properties in the big sell-off include two Total Sports stores in Hollywood and Cutler Ridge - an off-price unit of Herman`s Sporting Goods Inc. started early this year - and two J.B. Robinson jewelry stores in Coral Springs and Miami, said Jim Swords, a Grace spokesman in New York. "We don`t anticipate this will do anything to these stores` Christmas season," Swords said, adding that elsewhere across Florida, Grace is selling nine Handy City hardware stores.

A prison escapee suspected of robbing as many as 12 Florida jewelry stores, including one in the Fashion Mall at Plantation, shot and killed himself in Tampa on Saturday after being surrounded by law enforcement agents. Robert J. Mire, 33, roamed malls and robbed jewelry stores by day and attended Catholic church singles groups by night, said Mike Driscoll, an agent with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. "He was a very active participant in the single adult groups, well-liked and he behaved like a gentleman," said Driscoll, who circulated Mire`s picture to about 300 parishes in Florida.

Trust your instincts. Especially when it comes to jewelry. The woman who reported the theft of several pieces of jewelry from her home suspected that the person who stole the jewelry knew that she had it and that the woman was probably in her home for legitimate reasons on the day of the theft, according to a Columbia County Sheriff's Office news release. After checking with jewelry stores and pawn shops, a detective located the stolen jewelry at a local Coin and Gold store.